Rescuers hauled a horde of injured, diseased and dying cats Friday from a LaSalle house that the owner — who doesn’t live there — keeps solely for the animals.

Neighbours have been complaining about the throng of cats at 6715 Malden Road for years. On Friday, the stench of urine from inside the house reached the road.

“The second you walk in your eyes immediately start to water,” said OSPCA agent Amy Angelini. “You can’t breathe at all. It’s very, very strong ammonia. We tested with our ammonia strips and it’s the highest level that it can be. If we were going in there without respiratory covering we could get really sick.”

Angelini said the OSPCA is still investigating, but it’s possible the house owner could face charges.

LaSalle police were also on scene as the local humane society and the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (OSPCA) executed a search warrant.

Angelini and others spent the day Friday using nets and animal carriers to collect all the cats. They donned protective white suits, wrapped their boots in plastic and covered their faces with breathing masks. They captured 22 cats. One was dead. Some had oozing sores and missing eyes. Others were riddled with ear mites and had respiratory infections.

“We’ve taken out a lot, we’re probably going to be here for another couple hours,” said Angelini. “Some are wild, there are some that are sick. So we’re just trying to catch every one right now.”

She said the OSPCA executed a search warrant that stemmed from the latest in years of public complaints.

“And yesterday when I was here I saw a cat that was sitting in the front window with pus dripping from its ear,” Angelini said Friday. “So that’s what we went in based on for our search warrant.”

The owner of the house wasn’t there when they went in. Angelini said she was told the woman doesn’t live there.

“We have heard that the woman who comes in, she comes a couple times a week, maybe four or five times a month to come in and feed the animals,” said Angelini.

She said rescuers would take the cats back to the animal shelter where a medical team would assess each one. They will take pictures and record every detail concerning the cats and their conditions, then decide whether to lay charges.

Angelini said the OSPCA has dealt with the woman in the past because of repeated complaints.

“But this time it’s really bad,” she said. “It’s sad, because you just know there’s nothing that these animals can do. If it wasn’t for people calling in reporting this to us we would never know of things that go on in houses. I’m just so thankful to people that call in and complain. Even if they don’t think it’s a big deal, you never know. Just from the complaints coming in we went in there and found this horrible situation.”

Neighbour Joseph Wenzler is among those who have complained for years. He even went before town council.

“They die and she keeps bringing in more, and the mess keeps getting worse,” said Wenzler. “I’ve got a live trap. I trapped one year over 100 cats in my yard because she’s feeding the outdoor cats.”

The situation is so terrible that Wenzler said he was planning to move.

“What I smell is urine so bad it would bring you to your knees,” said Wenzler. “There’s garbage piled up constantly.”

“This problem has been ongoing for 15 years. I’ve called the police numerous times because of the smell. We put in a beautiful pool, spent $70,000 on our backyard. We can’t enjoy it.”

He said the woman also hasn’t maintained the house.

“Now the house is garbage,” said Wenzler. “How does that affect my property value? Nobody can live in there. It’s full of feces. Have you looked inside that place? I peeked in. It’s horrible. You see carcasses and feces all over. No carpeting, it’s all rotted away. The walls, there’s urine soaked up the walls.”

Another neighbour, who didn’t want his name used, said he can’t go in his back yard during the summer.

“We worry about the animals,” he said. “I’m worried about my health too. Being a kidney transplant patient, I got no immune system. I can’t even go near the fence in the summer time because of the smell, fleas, flies. It’s hard to enjoy your backyard. My wife can’t even go in the garden. It’s all full of feces.”

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